New submitter irventu writes “The long-awaited PHP 5.5.0 has finally been released, bringing many new features and integrating Zend’s recently open-sourced OPcache. With the new Laravel PHP framework winning RoRs and CodeIgnitor converts by the thousands, Google recently announcing support for PHP in its App Engine and the current PHP renaissance is well underway. This is great news for the web’s most popular scripting language.” The full list of new features is available at the Change Log, and the source code is at the download page. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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PHP 5.5.0 Released
After you might have read about the new release here , finally there it is! The next MediaPortal 2 alpha release – dubbed Alpha 2 – is out the door. Although progress since the winter-release has been immense, please be aware that this is still an alpha release and therefor not meant to be used on a productive system. Make sure that you read the instructions at the end of this news regarding installation, upgrade and extension compatibility. Summary of changes Server as a Service (# 3823 ): see MP2 Updates thread Improvements of share importer (# 4402 ), media shares are automatically imported once per day Configuration of Server settings from within the client (# 4283 ): Defining the server’s Dokan drive Defining the credentials the server uses to access network shares Installer and configuration improvements Simplified access to installation log files by providing a batch file (# 4329 ) Automatic download and install of LAV Filters during installation by offbyone LAV filters are preferred codecs (# 4364 ) New and improved plugins: New shutdown menu (# 3998 ) Weather plugin improvements by Valk: improved first run experience and a new feature to suggest location OnlineVideos plugin is included in this release News plugins includes new default news feeds per country Experimental 3D support (GUI / Video rendering of SBS/TAB videos, press F12 to toggle modes) ( 3D Video Support for MP2 ) The full change log is available here: MediaPortal 2 Alpha 2 change log Screenshots Installation Before installing MediaPortal 2, you need to make sure all requirements are installed. Then extract the downloaded .zip archive and simply run the .msi installer file. For screenshots refer to our installation wiki . Upgrade notes If you had an earlier version of MP2 installed you might not see your media items inside the libraries. The metadata for the media items have been extended (like the added geographic location support for images). Remove your existing share, then add a new one for the same location. Local cached online data will be kept (like covers and backdrops). Feedback & Support Discuss this release in the official release thread MediaPortal 2 Alpha2 If you are looking for further information please check out MediaPortal 2 wiki first. We are heavily working to improve it. If you don’t find an answer there create a new thread in MediaPortal 2 forums . If you found a bug, please check Mantis & bug report forums first. If it has not been reported already, create a new thread. Download If you would like to support MediaPortal, we would be happy to receive a small donation ! The Team wishes you a lot of fun with this new release! .::. Download – MediaPortal 2.0 Alpha 2 .::. .::. Post a Comment .::. 
MediaPortal 2 has progressed quite nicely, bringing exciting new features for every release! The rapid increase in features is a result of the clean code, structure and architecture that MediaPortal 2 is built upon. The main goal of MediaPortal 2 is to provide the best mediacenter software available when it comes to usability, flexibility and extensibility. While you’re waiting for the highly anticipated Alpha 2 release of MediaPortal 2 , here is a short summary of what MediaPortal 2 will bring to the table. Easy installation and configuration The installation process is quite straight forward, with only one setting to configure; whether you are installing as a client, a server – or both (we’ll get back to that later). The entire process takes less than two minutes. Then you’re going to need to do some configuration, like the path to where your media is located, or Windows power saving settings. Everything is configured from inside the MediaPortal 2 GUI – no need to exit to launch a configuration utility any more! Low resource usage and swift startup When you first start MediaPortal 2 , you’ll first notice the rather simple splash screen without any information on what’s going on in the background. The simple reason for this is that there really isn’t any time to read anything before you enter MediaPortal 2 – about five seconds later! Feel free to use task manager to monitor how much CPU and memory MediaPortal 2 uses and you’ll find that it uses very little resources. This is of course good for both economy and the environment, but most of all it means the road to a near inaudible system is suddenly far less bumpy. Robust and flexible skin engine Oh, the skin engine! Where to start! As you might have read already, the skin engine is totally rewritten and in contrast to MediaPortal 1 , the MediaPortal 2 user interface is mainly based on vector graphics and uses less images. The advantage of using vector definitions for graphical elements instead of pixel-graphics will make them scale to different resolutions without any loss of quality. Kinda cool when we’re entering the 4K era, ey? Another cool thing is how robust the skin engine is. If you’re a long time MediaPortal 1 user, you might remember the days we searched the forum for zip’s containing plugins and skin-files to match your preferred skin – just hoping that everything was the same version. MediaPortal 1 has come a long way since then (thank god!), many thanks to MPEI . Because the skins are constructed hierarchically in MediaPortal 2 , there will never be an issue where a particular plugin won’t work with a specific skin. Worst case scenario the template for the default skin will be used. Dedicated client / server – architecture The MediaPortal 2 Server is responsible for the central management of all media. You can connect multiple clients to the server and across all those clients you get the same data. Besides the media files itself, this also includes the meta data like genre, summary, actors, as well as the play count, watched state and last time a media has been played. As a result the client is just that – a client to browse and play content from the server. You can just hook up a new computer with the MediaPortal 2 Client installed, connect to the server, and you are just about ready to go! Of course you can still use one computer for both client and server. There is no graphical user interface (GUI) available when running the server only, but you can always monitor the status of the server from the system tray. Complete modular design Another thing that separates MediaPortal 2 from every other media center is the modular design. In MediaPortal 2 everything is a plugin. Everything! Skins, media players – they are all “just a plug-in”. Due to the modular design, one plugin won’t screw up another plugin and every plugin can thus easily be improved, added/removed or replaced. Which brings us to the next thing… Multiple player architecture Due to the modular design mentioned above, there is no longer “the” media player, as in all other media centers, but rather “a” media player. You can even call multiple players at the same time, which means you now can watch a muted channel while you listen to music (great for football/soccer half-time breaks!) or enjoy the benefits of having Picture-in-Picture (PiP)! Oh, and have you heard about video background? Basically, it is a perfectly looped video used as skin background. You can see a video of it below, but believe me – it is even better than it looks when you get it on your big screen! Try the all new Titanium skin with this loop , and be amazed! Ease-of-use localization MediaPortal 2 uses the web-based localization platform Transifex . Translations are done by both team members and our excellent community. Even if MediaPortal 2 is only in Alpha-state, localization support is quite advanced already – currently 18 languages are more than 90 % complete ! Built-in meta data extractors Not only does MediaPortal 2 offer built-in meta data extractors for music/audio, but it even extracts meta data from videos and pictures. Got a lot of MKV or MP4 media files? You tag them – we read them! Got a GPS within you digital camera, or tag your pics manually with the geo-location? Great! MediaPortal 2 reads it from the EXIF meta data and allows you to display and filter by the country/region/city where they have been taken. And more… much more… As stated before, this is just a short summary of what MediaPortal 2 has to offer. Lots of minor – but still important stuff is already implemented, like proper 3rd party library usage, HTML build reports and excellent thumbnail handling – done with Windows API with fallback method. Follow the development of MediaPortal 2 If you want to follow what’s going on regarding MediaPortal 2 , then I recommend that you subscribe to this thread . If you really want to see how much MediaPortal 2 has progressed since the last release, have a look at the changelog . GIVE IT A SPIN! MediaPortal 2 (Alpha 2) is just around the corner. Make sure to give it a try once it is released! (And if you can’t wait – or want to help test – you can find a pre-release here ) ::: Discussion thread for this blog ::: 
walterbyrd writes “In 2012, IBM started retiring the Lotus brand. Now 1-2-3, the core product that brought Lotus its fame, takes its turn on the chopping block. IBM stated, ‘Effective on the dates listed below, [June 11, 2013] IBM will withdraw from marketing part numbers from the following product release(s) licensed under the IBM International Program License Agreement:’ IBM Lotus 123 Millennium Edition V9.x, IBM Lotus SmartSuite 9.x V9.8.0, and Organizer V6.1.0. Further, IBM stated, ‘Customers will no longer be able to receive support for these offerings after September 30, 2014. No service extensions will be offered. There will be no replacement programs.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
